


In This Together

by spoopybat



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Loss, Love, Minor Character Death, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 18:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14878655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoopybat/pseuds/spoopybat
Summary: A collection of one-shots featuring Nora Fredricks and RJ MacCready as they travel the Commonwealth. Together they can work through their pasts and move forward.





	In This Together

**Author's Note:**

> It's been so long (a few years) since I've actually published any fanfiction and I'm excited to be doing it again. I know this first chapter is a little short but I hope you enjoy it 
> 
> Feel free to leave any comments or critiques! I want to make this an on going project and I want to make it the best it can be ♡

_"I see your face in every flower_  
_Your eyes in stars above_  
_It's just the thought of you_ _  
The very thought of you, my love"_

The song softly played from the old world tech as they quietly strolled down the empty streets of what used to be Weston. Nora is humming gently to the tune, not noticing that her traveling companion had stopped dead in his tracks. It wasn't until she turned to speak that she realized he was gone.

Gracefully she whirled around to see her mercenary standing frozen in the road, face hidden by his hat. With a few long strides she's close to him again. “Why'd you stop?” She leaned closer, craning her neck to get a better look at his face. “MacCready? What's wrong?” Worry seeped into her tone. He didn't answer, and she wasn't a fan of that. Her hand moved to the volume dial of her Pip Boy, turning the music off.

“Travis never played that one before.” He mumbled, barely audible. Somehow he was receding into himself and puffing up defensively at the same time.

“I guess not.” She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Wanna tell me why that's got you down?” A reassuring smile flashed across her face, hoping he'd see.

“No.” He said, now walking past her as fast as his legs could carry him. “Let's get going.”

“O-kay?” An eyebrow arched in curiosity but she didn't want to push.

They walked in silence for hours. Nora didn't dare turn the radio back on. Her eyes darted to the green glow emanating from the screen. “Hey, it's getting late. Do you wanna set up camp or did you plan on walking all night?” He stopped for a second before walking again. “For all we know we could be walking into an ambush.” She threw one of his lines back at him. Still no luck in getting him to stop. “Fine.” She groaned. “What if I gave you that pack of smokes I was gonna sell?” Finally he turned to look at her.

“All right, all right. If it'll get you to quit your whining we can set up camp.”

 

* * *

 

“Man, Cram hasn't changed.” She mumbled, poking at the meat with her fork. “You'd think two hundred years of radiation exposure would change the taste. I mean, I thought the isotopes would add at the very least the little ‘zip’ it needed.” There was that little lilt in her voice, the one that really drove home the fact that it was a joke. She wanted to roll her eyes at herself. It was like she was a crappy stand up comedian whose fallback routine was joking about airline food. Nora had hoped that would elicit some sort of reaction.

 _Nada._  She thought with a pout. That's when the little light went off above her head. She dug around in her bag for a moment before pulling out a few small bottles of rum. “Here.” She shoved the vial into his hand. “You look like you need this more than me.” Without saying a word he cracked the top and swallowed the shot whole.

“Thanks.” He grumbled, taking the second bottle she held.

Her butt slid off the cinder block she was using as a chair and hugged her knees to her chest. “I'm sorry about earlier.”

“It's not your fault.” He lifted his head enough to look at the fire before him. She couldn't help but stare at him. He had that same thousand-yard-stare he got when dealing with feral ghouls. A frustrated hand raked through his hair, knocking his hat to the ground beside him.

“I know,” She admitted. “, but I can still feel sorry about how you feel.” Her boot gently nudged at his. “Let me know if I can do anything.”

While this silence wasn't nearly as long as the one earlier and it felt just as oppressive. “That song was her favorite.”

“Her?” She probed.

“Lucy.” The name was familiar to her. Some nights, when she was on watch, he would say that name in his sleep.

“Oh.” She said, not knowing where to go with the conversation from here. He rolled the empty bottle between his hands, contemplating something.

“She was my wife.” He admitted. Nora had never heard that bit of information before.

“Was?” She regretted saying that as soon as the words left her mouth. Of course she just _had_ to ask, as if it wasn't obvious already. “I mean. . .” Her sentence trailed off as she touched the thin chain she had tucked in her shirt.

“Y-yeah.” His voice cracked. “I lost her a few years back.”

“Oh.” She repeated. “Listen, if you don't wanna talk about this-”

“It's fine.” Mac reached out for another nip of rum. She gladly obliged, knowing she'd take watch for tonight. “We made the mistake of holding up in a metro tunnel one night.” He downed the alcohol as fast as the others. “It was overrun with ferals.” His fear of the abominations made much more sense now. “It took everything I had to make it out with my son.”

“Son?” She damn near choked on the word. Underneath the usual wasteland wear and tear he didn't seem all that old. Certainly not ‘married and have a kid’ old.

“Yeah.” He weakly said. So many pieces started to fall into place.

“What was she like?” Her eyes closed for a moment as she basked in the warmth of the campfire.

“Lucy,” a wistful look shaped his features. “, she was so warm. Used to work in a clinic. Always dealin’ with these bratty kids but she was so. . . so patient.  Wuzzn’t much ovva fighter.” His words started to slur as the alcohol took hold. “Never took any o’ my crap. She couldda had anyone in Li’l Lamplight but I got lucky. She wouldda liked you.” Quietly Nora lit a cigarette and took a long drag, not wanting to interrupt him. “I ‘member sittin’ on her desk at the clinic. I was complaining about somethin’. She told me to shut it when this song came on. Begged me to dance with ‘er.”

“I would pay good money to see a gangly teen you try to dance.” She snorted.

“A Deathclaw is more graceful than me.” He finally managed to get a laugh out.; half-hearted or not it was still a laugh. “Whenthe song ended she kissed me for the first time.”

“I bet she was great.” MacCready looked up at her and she could see the remorse on his face. It broke her heart to see him like this. Everything he was saying was painfully similar to her and Nate. “I remember the first time I heard our song on the radio.” She took another long drag from the cigarette. As she sighed a cloud of smoke came out. Her eyes followed it up into the stars. “It. . . It wasn't easy.” Gingerly she pulled out the necklace that held the two gold wedding bands.

Tears started to form in her eyes as she looked at the glittering metal. She always got misty eyed when she looked at the wedding bands but the tears never managed to fall. All she could picture was Nate struggling against the white lab coats that were trying to take their son. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. Emotions had sucker punched her again. “It gets easier, promise.” MacCready leaned against her, unaware of how much weight he was actually putting on her. “Take it from a tough guy like me.” He jabbed a thumb into his chest. A hearty laugh fell from her lips.

“Sure tough guy.” The vault dweller gently elbowed him with a smirk.

“No,” He objected as he put more weight on her. “, I promise. It gets better. Yannow, you remind me of her.” He tossed the bottle into the darkness ahead of them and it shattered upon impact.

“Thanks.” It wasn't exactly comforting, getting compared to a dead spouse. But she knew he had good intentions with the compliment. “You're kinda like Nate.” She took another puff.

“Howso?” Mac lifted his head and for the first time all night he actually looked her in the face.

“I dunno,” Admittedly she had said that before she had time to really think. “, he always made jokes, just like someone else I know.”

“Thas nothin’ like me.” The man feigned innocence.

“He was also a big Grognak fan.”

“Psssh. Who isn't?” Slowly Mac shifted himself so his head was resting in her lap.

“People who don't know what badass is when they see it.”

“Exactly!” Nora couldn't help but roll her eyes at the mercenary who was growing more and more comfortable by the second.

“Nate always tried to make me laugh.” Her late husband's humor was what drew her to him in the first place. “That's why I went out with him _and_ how he made it into my pants so easily.” She muttered the last half of her sentence. Her eyes looked down at the half asleep man in her lap. “But he wasn't the same after he went to war.”

“Howso?” A yawn sent the scent of booze right to her nose.

“I dunno,” She thought about the best to explain it to him. “, you could say he went in kinda like you and came back like Danse.” Part of Nate was like Danse before he went to Alaska. She sighed and squashed her cigarette butt against the concrete. “I dunno if I would've married him if it weren't for Shaun.” She thought aloud. Each time she mentioned her late husband and son it strengthened her resolve to get their son back.

“What wassa song?” Another yawn escaped him.

“La Vie En Rose.”

“Lava wha’ now?” She smirked.

“It's a French title. It means Life in Roses.”

“What's French?” It dawned of her that world geography probably wasn't a required part of education anymore. “An’ fer that matter wassa rose?”

“It's kinda like a hubflower but it smelled sweeter.” She answered. “And French is that ‘gibberish’ Curie says when she's flustered. People from France used to speak it.” Her statement came out as more of a question, unsure if French was now a dead language. _It mustn't be if English is still English._ Before he could ask what France was she continued. “You know how Cait has that accent?” He nodded slowly. “Well that's from a country across the ocean. And France is in that area. Like how the Commonwealth is close to the Capital Wastes.” Absentmindedly she toyed with the loose threads of his duster.

“Neat.” A smirk found itself playing at her lips and an eyebrow raised. That certainly was one way of putting it. Knowing how different their lives were always surprised her, which was strange considering the environment that surrounded her. MacCready always seemed so fascinated by pre-war facts and it never failed to amuse her. There was a comfortable silence and she swore Mac had fallen asleep. “Whassa song sound like?”

“Nuh uh.” Nora shook her head. She was always embarrassed by her singing voice and the nuclear apocalypse hadn't changed that. Drunk or not she wasn't going to sing to MacCready. “I'm not singing to you.”

"C’mon you know what mine an’ Lucy’s sounds like.” He pulled at her sleeve like a stubborn child. “Please.” With a sigh she agreed. Sometimes she gave in to that man way too easily.

“Alright, but it's only ‘cause you said please.” Carefully she shifted her position so she had a better view of their surroundings, being careful to not disturb her companion. _“Hold me close and hold me fast, The magic spell you cast,This is La Vie En Rose_  
  
_When you kiss me heaven sighs, And though I close my eyes, I see La Vie En Rose_  
  
_When you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart, A world where roses bloom_  
  
_And when you speak angels sing from above, Everyday words seem to turn into love songs_  
_  
Give your heart and soul to me,And life will always be, La Vie En Rose_.” With that MacCready had fallen asleep, a smile on his face.


End file.
